Sustaining livelihoods and the environment

Policy and governance perspectives
Country case studies
Transboundary management issues

Organizers: Parisa Sanguatham
Susan Cuddy

The relationships between resource use, management and impact is naturally of key concern to countries faced with growing populations, growing and competing pressures for access to clean water and productive land, and external pressures to manage and preserve natural resources for the world.
In addition, developing countries have rapidly growing cities with high levels of internal migration to them. Such drivers of change bring with them huge and immediate pressures in terms of availability and reallocation of resources, maintenance of rural-urban cohesion, and cultural and social expectations. This session looks at projects and frameworks being used or being developed to balance the pressures on countries to conserve and develop sustainable livelihoods and the environment.

Mitigation of Natural Disasters: Forest fires, floods, droughts, storm surges, coastal erosion and deforestation

Organizers: Andre Zerger

Traditional approaches to natural disaster mitigation have commonly focused on developing structural solutions to reduce the impact of a hazard based on historical, rather than modelled data. Such approaches are generally suitable for relatively high frequency disaster events. In recent years however, simulation and modelling is being increasingly used a means of understanding low frequency hazards, modelling the risk of disaster for mitigation, and for planning post-disaster recovery. This session focuses on modelling and simulation approaches for natural disaster risk management. Papers that describe novel model integration frameworks; approaches which account for the vulnerability component of disaster; or which attempt to deal with multi-hazard disasters are particularly encouraged.

Data-based modelling (including data mining)

Organizers: Jessica Spate
Peter Young

This session will include topics from data mining, time series analysis, and machine learning. Within these fields, problems of system identification and/or characterisation and representation, data analysis and visualisation are examples of techniques useful in the environmental sciences. These and other methods will be discussed along with their applications in hydrology, GIS, the social and biological sciences. Novel methods with general application are also welcome.

Bayesian belief and Bayesian decision networks

Organizers: Rebecca Letcher

Bayesian belief and bayesian decision network approaches are increasingly being used as a model integration method for complex, multi-disciplinary management problems. This session invites papers on both theoretical issues associated with Bayesian Belief and Bayesian Decision networks, and on their application. Papers describing applications to natural resource management problems, or difficulties encountered with the application of these approaches more generally and ways these have been overcome are particularly encouraged.

Surface water and stream pollutant modelling

Organizers: Lachlan Newham
David Post

This session is concerned with approaches for modelling and simulation of stream pollutant fluxes and surface water flows. Papers are invited that describe modelling techniques and applications in these two broad areas. A focus of the session is on the use of models for management applications and contributions in this area are particularly encouraged. Papers that address issues of prediction in ungauged basins and modelling the sources, transport and fate of stream pollutants are welcome.

Surface and subsurface hydrology and water quality session

( description to come)

Recent developments in simulation and modeling Data-based modelling and data mining

Organizer: Jess Spate

This session will include topics from data mining, time series analysis, and machine learning. Within these fields, problems of system identification and/or characterisation and representation, data analysis and visualisation are examples of techniques useful in the environmental sciences. These and other methods will be discussed along with their applications in hydrology, GIS, and the social sciences. Novel methods with general application are also welcome.

Computation & simulation in Nanotechnology

Organizers: Dr. Joydeep Dutta,
Dr. Gautam Dasgupta,

Theory, modeling and simulations have led and will continue to lead us with insights into what to expect next and has often been used for the verification/explanation of what has been done or observed experimentally. For nanoscale systems, simulations and theory has more than often provided novel properties that have led to new designs, tailored materials and other systems for nanotechnology applications. For example carbon nanotubes applications in molecular electronics or computers were predicted first by theory and simulations, the experiments then followed up to fabricate and conceptualize new devices based on simulations. With the continued miniaturization and convergence of technologies, advanced computational methods in the nano and micro regimes are paramount in the advancement of technology in the 21 st century regardless of its traditional domain. Understanding of atomistic phenomena is of paramount interest in the interdisciplinary blending of computational efforts in biology, chemistry, physics and materials. Inherently similar atomistic-modeling approaches need to be applied towards traditionally distinct disciplines. This session will broadly address:

Molecular Modeling
Mathematical Modeling and Numerical Methods
Finite and Boundary Element Methods
Co-simulation and Optimization
System and Multi-level Modeling
Quantum computers

Modelling and Data Assimilation of Land Surface Processes

Organizer: Yaping Shao

Land surface is a key component of the environmental system. A wide range of environmental problems, ranging from climate change, water resources, soil erosion to vegetation growth, are closely related to land surface processes. The main topics to be included in this session are

land surface modelling and application
land surface data assimilation
land surface remote sensing
land surface parameterisation schemes
land surface and atmosphere interactions
land surface and ground water system interactions

We welcome papers on related subjects

Economic and Political Approaches to Counter-Terrorism

Organizer: Karan Singh

Terrorism can be regarded as a symptom of a deeper problem rather than a standalone threat. Proponents of this view emphasize the need to exact institutional change in much of the developing world where democracy and widespread prosperity are not well rooted. Papers are invited that focus on economic and political strategies to transform and uplift societies to mitigate the conditions that breed terrorism.